18 January 2010

Diet Songs: Slim-Fast

Slim-Fast products include drink powders, canned meal-replacement drinks, and things they call 'meal bars'. Like all diet products, these things can't really be thought of as food, they're ersatz, simulations of food, consumed as though they were actual food. You lose weight because you're not really eating, but you're compromising your health and you're statistically likely to regain the weight you lose. People who drink or eat Slim-Fast don't really care about this, they just want to be slim, fast.

Slim-Fast was bought by Unilever in 200 for "about $2.6billion" according to Google Finance. Unilever owns pretty much everything that hasn't already been carved up by Kraft, Nestlé and Proctor & Gamble. Unilever also owns Dove, which sort of makes you wonder about the sincerity of their Campaign for Real Beauty.

Another thing: on 3 December 2009 Slim-Fast recalled all of its cans of ready to drink product in the US because they had been contaminated by Bacillus cereus, which causes severe nausea, vomiting, gastro-intestinal pain and diarrhoea. I imagine there were some people who thought that these symptoms were an additional benefit, that they would speed up weight loss.

The original ad makes buying and eating Slim-Fast appear like some fun, Sex And The City-style expression of girl power. Simon and I wanted to channel Suicide and The Flying Lizards in our rendition of it. I tried to sound cold, expressionless and robotic as I sang; I wanted to undermine the cheeky-chirpy, girly feel of the advert by sounding like a femme bitch top. We tried adding samples of me making dry heave sounds, but chose not to keep them this time. I like how it came out.